Trump Officially Orders Dismantling Of Department Of Education

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the Department of Education.

The order tasks newly-confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States,” according to an earlier report from USA Today. Trump has been an outspoken critic of the department due to the failing state of education in the country, with test scores plummeting and many schools becoming overrun with radical ideologies.

The plan is meant to send education back to the states and give parents greater autonomy over the education of their children. The services the department provides will not be interrupted, the order stated.

“Today, we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making,” Trump said at the signing. “In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the Federal Department of Education.”

Some “critical functions” of the department will still be maintained through the D.C. headquarters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters shortly before the signing. The department itself will be significantly shrunk and the “great responsibility of educating our nation’s students will return to the states.”

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt said. “When it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education, but we don’t need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that’s clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students.”

“With today’s executive order, President Trump is delivering on his promise to the American people to dismantle the ineffective and bureaucracy-ridden U.S. Department of Education and return education to the states where it rightfully belongs,” Dr. Keri D. Ingraham, a senior fellow at Independent Women and director of the Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It is a historic day in our nation that takes us one step closer to the goal of education freedom for all families nationwide.”

In a statement issued shortly after her confirmation on March 3, McMahon outlined her “final mission” for the education department, stating the department “is not working as intended” and affirming her alignment with Trump’s plan to shut it down.

“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” McMahon wrote. “American education can be the greatest in the world. It ought not to be corrupted by political ideologies, special interests, and unjust discrimination. Parents, teachers, and students alike deserve better.”

Trump has long suggested the department be cut, even floating the idea during his first term when he told Fox News host Sean Hannity in 2016 that the department was “massive” and “can be largely cut.”

Since the department was established by Congress in 1980 as a Cabinet level agency, the president will need congressional approval and 60 votes in the Senate in order to fully eliminate it. Proponents of its abolition argue it has not fulfilled its intended purpose, which is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence,” according to the official website.

“Education should be focused on our children. But too often, it’s hijacked by special interests and those more concerned with advancing their own agendas than serving the best interests of students,” ACE Scholarships CEO Norton Rainey said in a statement. “For 40 years, the Department of Education’s K-12 efforts have been, at best, a wasteful distraction. It’s time for a new approach that puts children first by increasing choice and empowering parents instead of Washington bureaucrats.”

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) poured over $100,000,000 into DEI efforts for K-12 schools, funding projects aimed toward “LGBTQ inclusion” in which “anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded.” Upon taking office, Trump immediately got to work eliminating some of the radical topics from schools, signing a series of executive orders banning critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology from federally-funded schools.

Student test scores have reached some of the lowest levels ever recorded in the U.S., according to a January report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). One-third of eighth graders failed to reach the NAEP’s reading assessment benchmark in 2024, the largest percentage ever recorded, and 40% of fourth grade students tested below NAEP’s reading proficiency, the largest percentage since 2002.

“The Department of Education does nothing to improve students’ academic outcomes and has been completely captured by teachers unions pushing a leftist agenda,” Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, an Independent Women’s Network chapter leader and mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, told the DCNF. “Its dissolution can’t come soon enough. The minimal functions that the bloated bureaucracy performs to serve our nation’s children can be moved to other departments.”

A recent poll by Parents Defending Education found that parents are overwhelmingly unhappy with the state of education, with more than 50% of parents supporting the reduction of the size and influence of the federal department and more than three-quarters of parents supporting giving states more control over the sector. Less than half of parents who responded to the poll expressed satisfaction with the way the Department of Education is currently using its resources.

“I believe, and I don’t think a lot of people would disagree, that decisions are best made by those who are closest to the issue,” Cristine Trooien, a mother of three children, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in January prior to Trump’s return to the White House. “In K-12, that means parents and local school boards, not bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. So my hope is that the federal government will step out, but in tandem, that local parents will step up.”

“We now have a secretary of education, Linda McMahon, who understands the importance of getting the federal government out of the way. And I look forward to working alongside her to get the federal government off the backs of students, families, educators, and taxpayers,” Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg said in a statement. “Bottom line, the Department of Education has failed to deliver results for America’s students and today’s actions by the Trump administration will help ensure our nation’s youth are put first.”

The White House and Department of Education did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.